3. Ms E says HMCTS has not offered her a suitable remedy for a delay in its process which caused her to be issued a county court judgement (CCJ) and damaged her credit rating.
4. As a result, she says she is £1000 a month worse off, and her mental health was impacted.
5. By bringing her complaint to us Ms E would like HMCTS to pay her a remedy of £12,000 and make service improvements.
6. Ms E filed a defence against a claim relating to a parking ticket on 22 December 2023. She says she heard nothing from the courts until 15 March 2024 when she received notification the case had been heard, and no defence had been filed. The court had issued her a payment order of £297.90 (court fee and penalty charge) and a CCJ. Ms E says she suffers from anxiety and had started to take anti-depressants because of the stress that was being caused by the parking ticket.
7. Ms E complained to HMCTS on 28 March requesting that the CCJ be withdrawn and asked for information about whether her defence had been successful.
8. On 9 April Ms E paid HMCTS £297.90 to have the judgment cancelled as she says after communicating with HMCTS it became apparent there was nothing anyone could do to help her. Ms E also says she had to contact the claimant’s solicitors to update its systems as this is required for the court to see payment has been made.
9. On 23 April HMCTS emailed Ms E. It said as the case had been paid the court records were updated to mark the judgment as cancelled.
10. On 30 April a judge gave directions to set aside the judgment entered against Ms E in default and that the defence of 23 December stood as the defence.
11. On 9 May HMCTS wrote to Ms E, it acknowledged and apologised for not filing the defence on the Court file. HMCTS also offered Ms E an ex gratia payment of £250 for maladministration and delay.
12. Ms E was dissatisfied with the offer and requested that she be put back in the position she would have been in had the maladministration and delay not occurred. She said the offer did not cover the amount she had paid and the cancellation fee of £14. Ms E also said because of the CCJ her credit rating was destroyed and her £15000 credit facility was reduced.
13. HMCTS increased the offer to £350 to cover the judgment amount Ms E had paid and the £14 fee for the certificate of cancellation and the maladministration. Ms E appealed this.
14. HMCTS made a final offer of £450 in recognition of the inconvenience and stress it caused and to cover the judgment amount Ms E had paid.
15. On 24 June the claimant’s solicitors notified the Court that the claim had been paid in full as such HMCTS closed the claim.
18. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the event complained about had a negative effect which the organisation has not put right. Having done so we have found HMCTS has already offered to do enough to put right the impact of these events.
19. Ms E says HMCTS has not offered her a suitable remedy for the delay in its process which caused her to be issued a CCJ and damaged her credit rating.
20. We can see that finding out that her defence had not been filed and a judge decided to issue a CCJ must have caused Ms E concern during what was already a difficult time for her. Ms E’s actions led HMCTS to take the steps to have the CCJ removed by April. Following this Ms E had to contact HMCTS to have the judgment set aside and we can see this caused her inconvenience. We are sorry to hear this happened.
21. Experian (credit reference agency) says there are exceptions to when a CCJ will be added to the Register of Judgements, Orders and Fines including if the full amount is paid within a calendar month of it being issued. Citizen’s Advice Bureau on the other hand explains that if the debt is paid within 1 month an application to remove the entry form the Register should be made to the court who will provide a certificate to prove the debt has been paid. If the entry is removed from the Register the credit reference agencies are given the details and the CCJ is removed from the record.
22. Ms E says she is unable to provide evidence of the CCJ having been on her credit file as it would have been removed by her paying. She provided us statements which showed her credit facility was reduced from £15750 in April to £8050 in May and further to £7750 in July 2024.
23. In its initial response to Ms E’s complaint HMCTS explained that once a judgment is marked as cancelled, the Registry Trust (which operates and manages the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines) is notified electronically via an overnight link. The Trust then updates the Register of Judgments to remove the judgment from the register in line with their work positions. Once this is done, then the credit reference agencies are informed. The agencies are responsible for updating their own credit files, and the court has no control over when this is done.
24. HMCTS acknowledged and apologised for the mistake it made which it says was down to human error. Once it became aware of the issue it referred the matter to a Deputy District Judge who set the judgment aside. This is in line with our principles which say public bodies should use feedback to improve service delivery and performance.
25. HMCTS complaint handling guidance says it should aim to put the customer back in the position they were in before it made a mistake. In considering financial redress it can consider actual costs incurred in assessing financial loss as well as the impact caused by mistakes.
26. Ms E paid £297.90 on the advice of HMCTS staff in attempt to reduce the impact of the CCJ. We can see her actions led to the cancellation of the judgment which was later set aside. We are unable to say what the outcome of the Judge’s consideration would have been had HMCTS filed the defence. As we cannot say whether Ms E’s defence would have been successful, we cannot definitively say she would not have had to make the payment, or that judgement would not have been entered against her if her defence was not successful.
27. As a gesture of goodwill HMCTS offered to cover the penalty, court and certificate fees in acknowledgment of its failure to file the defence. It is likely the CCJ was on her credit report from March. We cannot say when it was removed by the Registry after HMCTS sent notification of the cancellation on 9 April or when we would expect the credit agencies to have been informed. We also cannot say a CCJ would not have been issued had HMCTS filed the defence properly. So we do not think we are able to say Ms E is £1000 a month worse off, based on the evidence we have available to us. Additionally, the loss of a credit facility cannot be considered a financial loss as it is not an actual cost incurred. We therefore consider HMCTS offer of £450 which covers the amount Ms E paid with the balance of £152.10 for the non financial impact is in line with our guidance on financial remedy for level 2 injustices which includes distress and inconvenience of up to six months.
28. We understand this may not be the outcome Ms E had hoped for. We in no way wish to diminish the impact of this event on her and hope we have been able to explain why we consider HMCTS has done enough to remedy the stress and inconvenience she endured because of its mistake.
1. We have carefully considered Ms E’s complaint about HMCTS. We are sorry to hear Ms E suffered stress and inconvenience because HMCTS failed to file her defence.
2. We have decided HMCTS has already offered to do enough to put right the impact of the failings we have found on Ms E.